Endless Knots

"Oh, hi, Ted"

Like everyone else in Massachusetts (and many elsewhere), I'm thinking about Senator Kennedy and the fragmentary anecdotes that his name evokes.

I keep thinking about this one "common man" story from my very dear friend, K, whose hubby, B, used to field calls from the high and mighty on a regular basis. One time they were here for dinner and the mayor of Boston called looking for him.

The incident I'm thinking of didn't involve my phone but it did involve K and B's. B was not home when the phone rang; K answered. "Hi," the man said, "this is Ted Kennedy. Is B there?"

"Oh, hi, Ted," K said, not realizing in that split second who it was, then became quite flustered at her lack of respect. She muttered about, explaining that B wasn't there.

"Ted" wasn't the least bit flustered. "Well, K, tell him to call anytime up to 9 PM," he said. "Vicki and I turn off the phone in the bedroom and we won't hear it."

Sweet and normal. I hope the treatments are not too onerous and that all who love him have the chance to express their love wildly and completely.

Margaret Fullerenes - The Film - Friday, May 23

Delighted to share this good news: filmmakers Ron Mortara and Kim Romano will join our Margaret Fuller birthday gathering at Mount Auburn Cemetery this coming Friday, May 23 (meet inside front gates at 8 AM, then proceed to the Fuller lot on Pyrola Path).

Ron will film, Kim (check out the trailer for her film Muriel) will do sound. "We" [she smiles toward Ron] plan to make a very short film about this gathering. The "script" goes something like this: We'll take a quick tour of the Fuller graves, I'll read from Fuller's work, anyone moved to speak will do so, and we'll end with John Halamka playing a mourning song on his Shakuhachi (Japanese flute).

I had the chance to work with Ron three years ago on his film, The Beat. Ron used his knowledge as an ex-neurosurgeon for this imaginative piece in which a scientist discovers that the same part of the brain that recognizes rhythm is responsible for violence. In the film, I played the scientist's artist-wife. We filmed in my friend Emily's painting studio. Here's Ron on the set of The Beat.

For those who love water, whales, sailboats, and beautiful essays, you must see Ron's short, HUNGER ANGER LOVE PLAY, his meditation on what a whale might be thinking.

Local readers and those in Boston this Friday, please, all welcome to join.

"If social networks were like cars"

Nova Spivack (search on his name here for more of my posts mentioning him) has a thoughtful post about the proliferation of social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc), positing that we join the ones with brands most appealing to us - while noting that he belongs to most of them as do his friends. (Me, I wouldn't say most but I do belong to more than one.) See "If social networks were like cars."

danah boyd has been writing about this for some time as part of her research on how the young 'uns are taking to the web, with distinct preferences for which social network they join based on class, ethnicity, and the like. And, no, that's not a typo. danah is lower case all the time. This post on "Teen Socialization Practices in Networked Publics" links to her recent talk for the MacArthur Foundation, and hits the high points of her research. Very interesting and mandatory reading for those of us following the complexities of the online world.

Lilacs

 

Uniting the Virtual Workforce

I'm waiting for my copy of Uniting the Virtual Workforce by Karen Sobel Lojeski and Richard R. Reilly to arrive so can't give a first-hand review yet but Rachael King does a nice job teasing out what's helpful here in Business Week's "How Virtual Teams Can Succeed." Here's a representative paragraph from King's review:

The authors coin a term, "virtual distance," to refer to the feelings of separation engendered by communicating by e-mail, instant messaging, audio conferencing, and other tools. If you've ever had a misunderstanding with a colleague via e-mail, you've experienced virtual distance. But more than just making people feel bad, the authors say, this virtual distance can be a serious problem that inhibits collaboration, impedes innovation, diminishes employee satisfaction, and hurts the bottom line.

I like it. Also like the authors' summary of a global infrastructure project run by Karan Sorensen, chief information officer for Johnson & Johnson's pharmaceutical research & development. Sorensen brought people together face-to-face at the beginning, which is also how Volvo IT launched its global SAP and its global infrastructure programs. (The research from our Harvard Business Review study said otherwise; at least among our sample of 54 teams, this initial face-to-face was not regarded as necessary.) From there on I agree that J&J's virtual team got it just right:

Early on, they set up rules of engagement, such as how each individual liked to communicate best, to address cultural differences. On conference calls, the staff kept photos of everyone by the phone, and Sorensen made sure to alternate call times so that certain people weren't always stuck dialing in at midnight. By getting her team to collaborate better, Sorensen completed the project under budget and well ahead of deadline, saving J&J more than $200 million over three years.

Worth the read. Here's the link again.

Champions of Freedom (House) 2008

Freedom House, which will be sixty next year, names "Champions of Freedom" each Spring. We celebrated last Thursday night here in Boston.

Pam Cross served as Mistress of Ceremonies,
here with her hubby, Ron Ancrum

THE ENVELOPE PLEASE

David Goodman (middle) received  a special award in honor of his mother, Dr. Carolyn Goodman, who, in 2002 was the first recipient of the Freedom House History Maker Award. Cynthia Bell (left) and Sarah Cleto Rial (right) accepted the History Maker Award on behalf of My Sister's Keeper. 

Paul Grogan accepted the History Maker Award on behalf of The Boston Foundation, where he serves as Pres and CEO

Dr. J. Keith Motley, Chancellor, UMass Boston, received the Ellen S. Jackson Award for Excellence in Education, as did the Boston School Reform Initiative.

And Richard Mintz, who worked with Freedom House founders Otto and Murial Snowden, accepted the Adrienne Williams Spellman Diversity Award on behalf of Mintz Levin.

And here are Freedom House Chair Emeritus, Gail Snowden, whose parents founded Freedom House, with her daughter, Lee Snowden Trimmier

 

Work Green, Work Virtually at Enterprise 2.0

And, careful readers, here's the last session we're involved with at Enterprise 2.0 here in Boston, week of June 9-12. Should be a lot of fun. Stick your most green stories in your Web 2.0 backpack and  share them with the early birds (8 am, Westin Waterfront):

Work Green, Work Virtually

Suddenly, in the past year or so, companies around the world are turning the mirror on themselves and trying to calculate the true cost of their doing business, including their environmental impact. For the first time, Enterprise 2.0 has published a green policy regarding conference materials. Collaboration, when extended to all aspects of the enterprise, can have a dramatic impact on reducing carbon footprint. Come share your stories and learn about what other organizations are doing to amp up their collaborative activities while tamping down their effect on the environment.

Date: 6/11/2008
Time: 8:00 AM
Room: Griffin

"When face time is a matter of life and death"

I was sitting in a meeting a few weeks ago when someone made the most powerful argument I've ever heard for virtual working: having to travel through armed conflict to get to a meeting. For those of us lucky enough not to be in war zones (I've lost track of how many wars are going on around the world - last I checked it was something like 50), we don't have to consider taking our lives in our hands when we go to a meeting. It got me thinking and I ended up writing "When face time is a matter of life and death" for The Industry Standard. I linked it back to the discussion we've had here on green teams. Here are the opening paragraphs:

"Many people have been killed going to meetings in Iraq.” It was an offhand remark made by a US military advisor in a casual conversation about virtual work -- its benefits, its pitfalls, its resisters, its committed participants. Until that moment, it had never before crossed my mind that traveling to a face-to-face meeting could be lethal.

Turns out Army commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan have taken measures to reduce travel. “One of the first things I did here was set up a collaborative network to offset the fact that we couldn't travel easily or safely," Lieutenant General Jim Dubik explained in an email to me. "Needless to say, doing so contributed hugely to the coordination of our work.” Dubik is Commanding General of Multinational Security Transition-Iraq. Dubik’s work follows a decade-long history of Web 2.0 and other media experimentation in the US Army (see The Social General)...

Continue reading my Industry Standard article here.

 

Book Launch 2.0: "My blog. I'm guessing no one reads it"

Struggling and/or successful authors, bloggers, and anyone else trying to get the word out about what they're doing, ahoy. This video by Dennis Cass pretty much summarizes what it means to be lost in today's world. Make that Today 2.0.

Virtual Teams 2.0, 3.0, 4...at Enterprise 2.0

Coming to Enterprise 2.0 here in Boston in a few weeks? If so, please let me know and please come to our sessions. I'm involved with three, including this one, which I'm sharing with, guess who, Jeff Stamps, and is about, guess what, virtual teams current and future:

Virtual Teams 2.0, 3.0, 4...

Virtual teams have always been in the 2.0 world, adding content to their shared online spaces, carrying on conversations after the lights have gone out, trying out new media. But the explosion of 2.0 technologies - and the advent of a generation that knows more about how to work online than their bosses - has altered (and will continue) to alter the virtual team landscape. What are the simple ideas that can slice through the complexity facing virtual teams? How can they easily form networks? How can they navigate among the multiple organizations that they serve? Hear the latest from the people who coined the term "virtual teams."

Date: 6/12/2008
Time: 10:45 AM
Room: Carlton